Nathan Spoor

 Meet Nathan in this very sweet interview about his work.

Nathan, around 4 or 5 years old. "I practically LIVED for Star Wars"

View and buy Nathan's work here

1.  A brief story about you

When I was really young, we lived in Arkansas for a while. Our yard backed up on two sides to the end of a farm with a barn and all, and a huge open field. The back yard fence was a big wire job that hosted wild blackberries in the summertime. I can remember going for countless adventures through that field, which had a full-on stream going through it with crawdads, various turtles and the very rare snake sighting.  Man, catching crawdads is such a weird thing to go after. They’re like fat angry little lobster-shrimp that live in the bottoms of streams and rivers like that one, with silt on the bottom that they can stir up and escape under rocks. But we moved to Houston, TX soon after and guess what? They have crawdads there too, but they build their homes out of the mud in your yard and make these crazy dirt chimneys! That blew me away. I mean, what will crawdads not do next, right?  There are way more stories like that. Some of them actually go somewhere or have a point. But this was brief, so maybe we’ll talk about stories again someday.

2. Your first / earliest visual memory

My first visual memory… I remember seeing Star Wars. I remember seeing a coffin in a church basement. I remember being stung by a bumblebee on my thumb and seeing literal fireworks and feeling like someone had hit my thumb with a hammer. I remember air raid sirens and hiding from tornados when we lived in the Dallas or Burkburnett areas of Texas. I remember my first fast sneakers, with a red dot on the back. I remember drawing on countless sheets of paper to make stories and work on drawing knights and dragons and super heroes.  I remember riding on the back of a motorcycle and falling off when we went through the woods. I remember getting bucked off a horse. I remember… wait, I think the earliest visual memory would be of my parents reading me stories before bedtime. That is a GOOD habit to be in.

3. What or who inspired you as a kid?

I was inspired by a couple of things. One was the consistent storytelling from my Dad. I love stories, and Dad spent several summer trips telling us stories while the family camped in the Ozarks in Arkansas. Another was Star Wars. That epic hero story, hit home immediately. That trilogy was so huge in my young life. My family and friends would all be waiting for that.  I remember getting so energized by that movie.  I could watch Star Wars all day long, recreate the movie or scene with the figures, and then practice drawing stories on scrap paper. Throughout early days, kids books by Richard Scarry, Bill Peat, Dr. Seuss, comic books and sci-fi movies were the core of my creative inspirations.

4. An early poignant art making moment / experience?

I remember the day I learned that you could trace things. It blew my mind. When I was little my Dad was a youth and family minister for a really big church. I actually liked going to work with Dad then because I could pretty much just play all through this giant, multi-level and interconnected building structures. Well, one day I was wandering through the education wing and there was an older kid using the media room. The media room was a place with all the markers, rulers, paper and other things that I was keen on from the early days. I was early elementary school age and he was in high school. The school mascot was a bulldog, and he had drawn a perfect bulldog and added letters and all. I was blown away. I mean, how do you even do that sort of thing? My drawings were so lame compared to this bold comic book interpretation of his. I was like, “How did you do that?” I wanted one! He said, it’s easy you can draw one yourself. “What??” was my response. Sure, this is a light table. You turn it on here and put your image on and then your paper over that and you trace it. I was amazed. I tried to trace it a couple times and it came out way crazy. So I turned to trying to eyeball it and copy it and got way better results.  From then on I was trying to copy anything I could, especially my limited comic supply and the Star Wars comic strips that my Mom’s Mom would clip from the Houston paper and send in the mail.

5. How would you describe your style and approach to your work?

My approach to work and life is fairly direct. It comes from the realization that I only have a limited amount of time to make something important or interesting or entertaining, hopefully lasting or creatively enriching. So each day I work towards the goal of making the best work that I can, and being open minded about what the next move should be and how to not stand in my own way. My work is inspired by visual images that I ‘see’. That’s the most concise way I know how to describe that.

6. Message for mini budding artists

Go on and try out as many things as you can, different mediums, different colors and styles… Kids are going to take right to it if it’s their nature to be creative. Some kids like to stack things, some like to get big with paints and crayons. Some seem to like making things to just watch them fall. It’s all their art, or yours. So just expect that every piece or project is the best way to get better and learn more. You have to make a bunch of things to learn how to push yourself further and in what direction. That’s one of the cool things about creativity. Your creative self will be drawn to the most interesting or fun direction early on - you just have to spend your whole life learning to really listen to it better as you go. And that childlike aspect of being an artist is extremely important and should be cherished and protected.